Hardcore mode just means One Life, really. 🙂 When my character dies, that's it. The world has ended.
Minecraft is a sandbox game where you choose what you want to do. Mostly it's just cut down trees, mine, fish, explore, build a house, survive, and thrive! It really doesn't have a point to it, per se, but it's pretty relaxing (if not in hardcore mode, haha!!) and also pretty fun with friends.
I can't usually play for a very long time unless I'm playing on a server with other people. So I find Hardcore Mode perfect for me just to scratch the Minecraft Itch and get it out of my system for a while. Since when I usually make a singleplayer game I never return to it anyway, so if I die and lose everything, no biggy. 🤷♀